Society of St. Pius X

Still Sliding

Still Sliding on October 27, 2018

“No enemies on the left” is a classic saying of Democrats, Socialists, Communists, etc. It means that in politics, nobody fighting on the left should fight anybody else fighting on the left, unless they are going over to the right. In religion, the same saying should apply as follows: nobody fighting the good fight for Catholic Tradition should fight anybody else fighting for Tradition, unless they are in the process of abandoning Tradition. This means that no Catholics of Tradition should normally be attacking the Society of St Pius X which for over 40 years rendered outstanding service to Tradition. Alas, its interim Chapter of 2012 showed it to be sliding away from that Tradition in which it had been founded by Archbishop Lefebvre, and now the elective Chapter of last July seems to show the same slide to be continuing. Therefore with no intention here to harm the Society, let Catholics learn of the officially continuing slide.

The evidence is in a circular letter from Society Headquarters in Menzingen which begins to tell details of policy decisions taken by the Chapter of last July concerning relations of the Society with Rome. The policy is in five sections, of which the first three and the fifth contain a variety of pious considerations to frame the fourth section, which could not be a more official presentation of the Society’s policy towards Rome. Here is the fourth section, quoted in full. It is so important for the Society’s immediate future that every word will have been chosen by the Chapter with special care, and every word may be analysed:—

4a It is within the rights of the Superior General to decide if it is expedient to have contacts with the Holy See. It is up to him, in prudence and when the hour has come, dictated by Divine Providence, to take into consideration a modification of the canonical status, without prejudice to the prior convocation of a Chapter.

4b The Society is a work of the Church. Therefore, she has no agreement to conclude with the Holy Father. However, when the time comes, the true rights of the Society will be recognised and codified canonically. This is why the Society’s members are invited to speak more specifically about a “normalisation,” a “recognition,” a “solution or modification of the canonical status,” or a “renewal of our canonical approval.”

As to 4a – Indeed the Society’s Superior General must decide on what negotiations with Rome serve the Faith, and on how to conduct them, but in all Society Chapters prior to 2012 (1994, 2000, 2006), it was clearly repeated that any final submission to official Rome, or re-integration into it, or agreement with it, was something of such momentum for the Society that the Superior General could not alone decide on it without a full General Chapter also voting in its favour. Now note the phraseology of 2018: “modification of the canonical status” is a fig-leaf expression to cover over the placing of Archbishop Lefebvre’s Society of Truth under Conciliar Rome’s Authority of Lies. And “without prejudice to” (i.e. not excluding) is a poor substitute for “never without” (i.e. necessarily including). And note the assumption that the Superior General is guaranteed to decide in accordance with Providence. Did Paul VI have any such guarantee?

As to 4b – Indeed normally no subject makes an agreement with his Superior as though they are equals, but Neo-modernist Rome is not normal Rome! The Archbishop’s Society of Truth has no business to be putting itself in the position of a beggar with regard to the modernists now holding office in Rome. Truth does not beg from lies, unless it is ceasing to be Truth. In fact the Newsociety of 2018, has lost all real grip on the truth of the overwhelming crisis in the Newchurch of Vatican II, and it is losing its grip on Truth in general. So the four fig-leaf expressions that the Chapter here chooses to replace words expressing the reality of the Newsociety HQ’s intended sell-out to the enemies of the Faith now in Rome, are wholly out of place. They absolutely do not correspond to the reality of that sell-out.

Kyrie eleison.

Whither, “Resistance” ? – II

Whither, “Resistance” ? – II on September 8, 2018

When John-Paul II became Pope in 1978, a number of Catholics were genuinely hopeful that the situation in the Church would get better than it had been under Paul VI, but I can remember Archbishop Lefebvre saying that if John-Paul II did not clean house in Rome within the first six months of his pontificate, he would not be able to break with the policies established in Rome by Paul VI. Similarly, if Fr. Pagliarani does not clean house soon at the top of the Society, the followers around him of Bishop Fellay are liable to hinder him from making any significant change in the disastrous policies of his predecessor. The rot that started with GREC in the 1990’s has had time to put down some deep roots.

Therefore if anyone is concerned about the future of the “Resistance,” on the grounds that the Society is coming back on track with the new Superior General so that the “Resistance” will no longer be necessary, the first part of the answer is that it is not yet certain that the Society is coming back on track. We must wait and see. Fr Pagliarani is a good man, he surely means well, and we pray for him, but if he chooses first and foremost to unite liberals and anti-liberals within the Society by means of human and political compromises, he will never save the Society from its present downward slide. Our faith is our victory over the world, says St John (I Jn. V, 4), and not our politics. Therefore the “Resistance,” that small and scattered group of bishops, priests and laity doing what they can to resist disastrous politics of Rome and Menzingen, cannot yet give up resisting, however disorganised they are, however ineffective they may seem. Somebody in the Church must fight for what Archbishop Lefebvre fought for.

For indeed, secondly, imagine a convert being led by the grace of God, even today, to the Catholic Faith. By its very principles it must be incarnate somewhere. He may well not find it in the antics of the Novus Ordo. He turns away from the Conciliar Church towards Tradition. He finds the Society of St Pius X, but then discovers that it is going Conciliar. Where does he turn to next? If there is no “Resistance,” he risks giving up on the Incarnate Christ. Somebody in the Church must be living by the logic of the true Faith of 20 centuries, otherwise there risk being souls that conclude that that Faith is obsolete in today’s world.

Likewise souls letting go of the Society’s high trapeze need a Catholic safety-net to fall into, with or without the name of the “Resistance.”

And thirdly, there is any number of ways of mixing whisky with water, but they all depend on somebody producing pure whisky. Similarly, there is an even greater variety of ways of mixing Our Lord with the world, but they all depend upon some people upholding in their lives, and not only in their words, an example for all to see of true Catholic living. This function always used to be served by the Church’s religious Orders and Congregations. Hence their importance. After the Council which ruined them, that function was served especially by the Archbishop and his Society. Today from all over the world the reports come in of the fellayised Society giving a weaker and weaker example of Catholic life and morals. Somebody in the Church must give witness by at least striving to live up to the high standards of doctrine and morals demanded of souls by Our Lord Himself (Mt. V, 48).

And a fourth reason for the “Resistance” not to resign or go out of business or give up the wearisome fight for the Truth, is that it cannot do so, because if it did, then as Our Lord says (Lk XIX, 40), the stones of the street would have to cry out. In other words, the Truth may be smothered by all mankind, but it is not men, it is God who is in charge of the world, and God will never allow the Truth to be completely silenced, because that would frustrate His purpose in creating the world, which is to populate Heaven.

Therefore the “Resistance” may tomorrow, or the day after, change form – and in this respect its present formlessness will actually help! – but in some form or other God will make it continue (cf. Is. VI, 9–11).

We carry on.

Kyrie eleison.

Rigged Video Game – I

Rigged Video Game – I on August 18, 2018

Charity certainly prays for the new Superior General of the Society of St Pius X that God may give him the insight and the strength to bring the Society back onto the course set for it – and for the good of the Universal Church – by Archbishop Lefebvre, but realistically Fr Pagliarani may not even have the desire to do any such thing. Realistically, on the human level, the indications are that he is on the same wavelength as Bishop Fellay, and that his election as Superior General was Rome’s and Bishop Fellay’s joint back-up plan for the Chapter if Bishop Fellay himself failed to be re-elected, as seems to have been the case. Thus if Fr Pagliarani would look after Bishop Fellay’s interests, Bishop Fellay would in case of need promote his candidacy for Superior General. Here are a few indications that the two of them are conspiring to bring the Traditional Society under Conciliar Rome –

* At the interim (non-elective) General Chapter of 2012, it is reported that it was Fr Pagliarani who saved Bishop Fellay from devastating arguments presented to the Chapter for Bishop Fellay’s dismissal and replacement as Superior General. Fr Pagliarani told the Chapter that it should not give the Superior a slap in the face – and the weak-kneed Chapter went straight on to other business.

* Soon after that Chapter Fr Pagliarani was promoted – rewarded? – by Bishop Fellay with the elevated post of Seminary Rector at the Society’s seminary for Latin America in La Reja, Argentina. There Fr Pagliarani has been heard to criticise whoever does not understand the need for an agreement between the Society and Rome – Bishop Fellay’s own policy.

* We may hope one day to know for sure exactly how it happened that the two “Counsellors” were added to the Society’s General Council, thus putting Bishop Fellay close back to the seat of power in the Society from which he had just been dethroned a few days before. But is it likely that the all too docile and respectful Capitulants would have voted for such a move if it had not seemed to be agreeable to the new Superior General himself? In fact, if it had not been proposed by Fr Pagliarani himself?

Such questions remain speculations until the facts are made known, but they are not idle speculations, because upon the course of the Society over the next few years depends a great deal in the Universal Church. Will the Society become again the central bulwark of resistance to Conciliar apostasy wreaking havoc within the Church, or is it going to join that movement of apostasy? Within the mainstream Church the Society was always numerically insignificant when compared with all the other institutions together making up the Universal Church, but the Society’s unique faithfulness to the Catholic doctrine and sacraments of all time, being abandoned or perverted by the Church’s highest officials, made the Society a force to be reckoned with. The Archbishop’s stand on Truth made him redoubtable. The Conciliar Popes could neither swallow him down nor spit him out. They have long since swallowed down and eaten up Bishop Fellay.

Time will tell how Fr Pagliarani will handle his tremendous responsibilities. Meanwhile we pray for him, but we are not humanly hopeful. The risk is all too great of the Society’s leaders following the rest of the world’s leaders, and turning the Society into a “rigged video-game,” as somebody well described today’s world. To punish mankind abandoning God everywhere, He is giving power to His enemies to root out the last remains of Christ and of Christian civilisation. However, at least for a while yet, appearances of Christ and His Church must be maintained until they no longer arouse even nostalgia in men being de-christianised. Hence the video-game with no reality beneath the appearances emptied out. Hence the rigging of elections and of Chapters to bring about the Brave New World, without Christ or God.

Alas, for these poor enemies. God exists, and Our Lord is going to strike!

Kyrie eleison.

General Chapter – III

General Chapter – III on August 11, 2018

When Catholic Truth and Catholic Authority move apart, as at Vatican II, it cannot be the Truth that is moving, because Catholic doctrine does not change. It can only be the Authority that has moved, and therefore the Church authorities can alone be to blame for the separation. All the more reason to treasure those authorities that did not betray the Truth, such as Archbishop Lefebvre and his Society of St Pius X. All the more reason to take at least one more look at what happened to it at its recent General Chapter – did the Society in fact get back on the Archbishop’s track which it left in 2012, or did the French proverb apply, “the more things change, the more they stay the same”?

At the beginning of the Chapter three new men were elected to form the triumvirate (body of three men) ruling the Society, and many a good priest in the Society breathed a great sigh of relief and enjoyed a few days of real hope for the future. But then at the end of the Chapter there were voted onto the Society’s General Council, where major decisions are taken, the previous Superior General together with his own predecessor as Superior General. This was by the creation of a novelty in the Society, a new post of “Counsellor.” And many a good priest’s heart must have sunk in his breast. What hope could there be now for a change of the Society’s disastrous course from faithful Truth to faithless authorities when that course’s two main architects were reinstated on the Society’s General Council?

At least one participant in the Chapter was reassured that the two “Counsellors” will not be living in Society headquarters in Menzingen, Switzerland; that they will only be advising on questions of setting up or closing Society houses and admitting or expelling Society members; that creating the “Counsellors” was a clever move of the Chapter because it will help to heal divisions in the Society. Does anyone feel re-assured? Menzingen must win back the trust which its ambiguous politics for 20 years have lost. Here is one commentator among many who does not trust such recent soothing words of the Society’s rulers:—

In reality the choice – fixed beforehand – of Fr Pagliarani for the new Superior General disguises the policy likewise fixed beforehand of confirming the status quo, as to the future direction of the Society. Shamelessly there were placed at the side of the New Superior two more Assistants, hardly outstanding for their resistance to modernist Rome. Moreover the Chapter had the nerve to invent the function of two “Counsellors,” unheard of in the Society’s Statutes, and to “choose” for the job the two characters most in favour of an agreement with Rome that the Society has ever had: Fr. Schmidberger, known for his friendship with Cardinal Ratzinger, and Bishop Fellay, known for his “new friends” in Rome and for his dedication to liquidating the Society, to be handed over bound hand and foot to the Roman apostates.

The picture that emerges is not necessarily one of unconditional surrender, but we catch a glimpse of a new way of getting closer to Rome, with a little more caution and a little more diplomacy towards the priests and laity of the Society. However, given that God both sees and foresees, and that while man proposes, it is God who disposes, then another possibility is that Our Lord intervenes and infuses in the relatively young Fr Pagliarani the Gifts of Counsel, Fortitude and Fear of God which he will need to straighten out the course of the Society lifeboat, and bring it safely to port. May that be God’s will!

In fairness, the Chapter did succeed in changing the Superior General, which was the most important thing that it had to do. Bishop Fellay and Fr Schmidberger as “Counsellors” may well go on scheming with the Romans on how to bring what remains of the Archbishop’s Society under the heel of Conciliar Rome, but supreme power in the Society now belongs to Fr Pagliarani. Will he make good use of it? God only knows. “Charity believes all things, hopes all things” (I Cor. XIII, 7). We must pray for him.

Kyrie eleison.

General Chapter – II

General Chapter – II on August 4, 2018

At least for the moment one may reasonably judge that the General Chapter of the Society of St Pius X concluded in yet another disguised defeat for the Catholic Faith. It is a shame if the 40 leading priests of what was once Archbishop Lefebvre’s Society do not grasp the full dimension of the Church and world crisis in which we all find ourselves today, but that is the reality. In a way they are not to be blamed, because they are no more nor less than children of their age. Given that we are living in pre-apocalyptic times, why should Society priests have been spared the temptations and blindness which have, since Vatican II, brought low the mass of the Church’s bishops and priests? The Church has Our Lord’s promise that it will never fail (Mt. XXVIII, 20), but the Society never had any such promise.

Therefore let Catholics who wish to save their souls “get real”, as Americans say, or adjust their minds to the reality of our situation. For example, an anxious mother from the United States just wrote to me of her concern for her children:– “I want my children to have other children who love the faith. And I want other opportunities for them to meet faithful Catholics and maybe marry one-day. I have a son who is only 12 and would like to become a priest. What is the future for them? Will there ever be in our neck of the woods a “Resistance” priest? And how about a school? And will my son ever be safe entering a seminary?” There must be today many Catholic mothers with the same heartburn. I replied with the immense need that all Catholics have today to grasp reality and to adapt to it:–

Dear Mother,

GET USED TO THE IDEA THAT IN A FAMINE A CRUST OF BREAD IS A LUXURY . The Church is in a state of famine. Therefore –

1 Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, says Our Lord (Sermon on the Mount). There may or may not be a decent Seminary by the time your 12-year old grows up. If there is not, that will mean that Our Lord did not mean for him to be a priest. But much water will go over the dam between now and then.

2 A priest from the “Resistance” in your neck of the woods? Time alone will tell. Meanwhile you are not obliged to attend Masses which diminish your faith, in fact you may be obliged not to attend them. Let you and your husband judge. But if you attend no public Mass, you must adore God at home in a regular way on Sunday. That is the Third Commandment. Your example will teach your children.

3 A “Resistance” school will be a super-luxury. Meanwhile children DOOOOO listen to their biological parents, it is deep in their nature. You can send them to schools not so good, as long as you have the Rosary at home, and watch carefully over all influences that can come to play on them, especially their music… Do not let them be alone in their rooms with any electronics. Keep these out of the home, as absolutely far as possible.

4 Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. Remember St Ambrose to St Monica — “The child of so many tears (the future St Augustine) cannot be lost.” Weep tears of blood if necessary for the salvation of each of your children – what else matters? – but at the same time have a boundless trust in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and in the desire and power of His Mother to obtain their salvation.

Therefore, dear readers, the Archbishop and his Society were a super-luxury. It is all too normal if today we lose it. We must “gird our loins”, i.e. tighten our belts, and reckon on saving our souls without it, if necessary. The grace of God is always there. “The help of God is closer than the door.”

Kyrie eleison.

General Chapter – I

General Chapter – I on July 28, 2018

So the latest General Chapter of the Society of St Pius X, the fourth with elections (1982, 1994, 2006 and 2018), came to a close in Écône, Switzerland, last Saturday. The event was followed with interest in many quarters, because for about 40 years from its founding in 1970 the Society emerged as a most important bastion of the Catholic Faith in the wake of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), which had in effect officially undermined that Faith. However, over the last 20 years or so the Society had given increasing signs of a change of direction, more in line with the Church’s Conciliar officials, and less in line with its Founder, Archbishop Lefebvre. Which direction would the General Chapter now show the Society to be taking?

The detailed proceedings of a Chapter are meant to remain private, like those of the election of a Pope, but at the end of the Chapter emerged public words and actions. The words were the Chapter’s official Declaration of policy for the future, which aligned itself on Archbishop Lefebvre’s famous declaration of November of 1974, “in its entirety.” However, as the website Non Possumus has clearly shown by quoting truly in its entirety that declaration of war against the new religion of Vatican II, the Chapter has deliberately chosen to quote only its more peaceful parts. This is not promising for the Society’s continuation of the Archbishop’s holy war against the dreadful apostasy of Vatican II.

Of course the Archbishop was Catholic first and only as a consequence anti-Conciliar, which is why his declaration of war contains peaceful parts. But how can truth be loved without a hatred of error? Anti-Conciliarism follows immediately and necessarily upon love of Catholicism, which is why hordes of true Catholics came to follow the Society and its Founder who clearly and openly denounced the apostasy of the Church’s officials. Under him, the seminary in Écône once had well over a hundred seminarians, and crowds of thousands would attend each summer the ordination of a dozen or more new priests. In June of this year an estimated crowd of 450 souls attended the ordination of three new priests from among about 40 seminarians. Catholics are voting with their feet – and closing their wallets – against the Newsociety.

As for the Chapter’s public actions, which always speak louder than words, these consisted in the election of a new Superior General and two new Assistants. Participants in the Chapter must be congratulated on having deposed the previous General and Assistants, because these had striven for 12 years to change the Society’s direction in order to pursue official recognition from the Roman apostates. The recognition was not obtained, but the Society was seriously weakened and its best priests disoriented. So who did the Chapter choose as rulers in their place? The two new Assistants have been loyal executives of the previous General with his policy of currying favour with Conciliar Rome. For the common good of the Society? But when was there ever a Catholic common good opposed to the Faith? As for the new General, he may not himself know what he means to do as General, because God alone knows for sure what a man will do when he is put in power. Often he will disappoint, because “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” (Lord Acton) – but he can prove to be surprisingly good. Fr Pagliarani certainly needs our prayers.

In this respect however, the Chapter’s last public action came like a thunderclap. Just before the Chapter’s close they voted to add to the Society’s governing Council of General and two Assistants another two “Counsellors,” and who did they choose? The Society’s last two Generals, Fr Schmidberger (1982–1994) and Bishop Fellay, who between 1994 when he was first elected and 2018 when he was at last dethroned, was the main architect of the Society’s weakening and decline! Whose doing was it to put Bishop Fellay right back next to the throne, together with his closest collaborator, Fr Schmidberger? What wise Superior wants his predecessor to be hanging around for another 12 years? What did the Chapter think it was doing? In any case, it is not a good sign if the Society is to love truth and hate error.

Kyrie eleison.